Plugfest in France nudges mobile WiMAX spec forward

Members of the WiMAX Forum get together in France to ensure that all of their …

Throughout the week, the WiMAX Forum has been conducting the Mobile WiMAX PlugFest in Sophia Antipolis, France. Designed to give vendors a chance to test how well their equipment plays nicely with other gear, the event will wrap up on Saturday. 33 vendors are attending, including Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, Samsung, Sanyo, Intel, and Motorola.

Also known by its official 802.16e-2005 moniker, Mobile WiMAX is designed to bring broadband speeds to mobile applications. It's the basis for Sprint's upcoming 4G network, which will begin testing in Washington, DC, and Chicago this year and will see a wider rollout beginning in early 2008. Mobile WiMAX offers bandwidth of up to 15Mbps per channel, compared to 40Mbps for fixed WiMAX, and Sprint has said that individual users should see speeds of between 2Mbps and 4Mbps on its network.

The Federal Communications Commission recently approved a WiMAX card for laptops, which will function on Clearwire's WiMAX network. Last month, Intel announced plans to natively support Mobile WiMAX on its Montevina platform, due out some time in the first half of 2008.

The plugfest marks the first chance that manufacturers and the WiMAX Forum have had to test new smart antenna technologies such as MIMO (also used in 802.11n) and beamforming, both of which allow for increased speeds. Handoff between towers are also being tested with two base stations simulating a mobile environment.

Once the plugfest wraps up, the WiMAX Forum will make the results available, although details about how well particular products interoperated with others will not be disclosed due to nondisclosure agreements.

Looking ahead, the IEEE recently announced a surprisingly aggressive timeline for gigabit WiMAX, called 802.16m. If all goes as planned, gigabit WiMAX—which offers a gigabit of bandwidth per channel—will be finalized by the end of 2009.